He went up to his room to put on the frock coat he wore at duels. The moment for officiating had arrived. He remained hesitating in front of the mirror, realizing the lack of harmony between this majestic garment and the derby that topped off his appearance. Oh, the war! He smiled at the absurd thought of presenting himself thus four years before—it seemed like four centuries—in those Paris duels, in which the seconds and adversaries felt that it was only decent to go to meet death with an elegant, shiny, high hat.
Having omitted this solemn touch, he felt that he might look somewhat ridiculous sitting in the automobile beside the Prince, with his long frock coat and the two pistol cases on his knees.
The carriage stopped in the Boulevard des Moulins, in front of the doctor's house. Wounded soldiers were passing, some with fixed stares, tapping the pavement in front of them with sticks, others tottering along out of weakness or owing to an amputation.
A woman's voice, smooth and sweet, greeted the Prince. It was the voice of an extremely slender nurse, who was walking arm and arm with two blind officers. Michael and Don Marcos recognized Lewis' niece. She smiled at them, showing them the two strapping Englishmen whom she was serving as a guide; two fair-haired Apollos, tanned by the sun, with Roman profiles, shining teeth, and lithe bodies, strong and symmetrical, but with vacant eyes—like fires that have gone out—and a tragic expression on their lips, an expression of despair and protest at finding themselves dead in the midst of life.
"They are my two 'crushes'. How do you like them?" She was jesting in order to cheer up her companions, with that joyousness and daring of a Virgin Dolorosa, passing through the world scattering pale rays of Northern sunlight in the ambulances and hospitals. She seemed to be made entirely of the same stuff as the sacramental Host, fragile, anæmic, white and transparent, like dim crystal. And she went away, guiding like children the two blind men, despairing and handsome, whose heads towered above her own. A slight pressure of their fingers would have been enough to crush that body, like an alabaster lamp, all light, of no more substance than was necessary to guard the inner flame and cause it to shine through.
"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince.
Don Marcos started on hearing his voice; it was a solemn voice such as he had never heard, a tremulous voice like a sentimental song in the depths of which lay teardrops.
The doctor laid his surgical case on the frayed carpet in the auto. There were three such cases now. It was not until then that the Colonel decided to relieve himself of the two precious boxes, placing them on top of the doctor's.
The car started off up the mountain, by a road that rose in sharp zigzags. At the end of each angle, Monte Carlo was revealed, smaller and smaller, and more sunken, like a toy city built of blocks with its red roof and many ants threading its streets to gather together in the Square. On the other hand, the sea seemed to arch its back, constantly rising, devouring with its blue rectilinear jaws a portion of the sky at each turn in the climb.
On the crest of the hill a huge mass of masonry kept growing more and more gigantic; La Trophee, a name which had finally changed to La Turbie, the medieval name of the little gray, walled village, which huddled about the monument. Two slender columns of white marble flanking the rubble-work, and a piece of the cornice were all that remained of the proudest of Roman trophies—a tower 30 meters in height, with a gigantic statue of Augustus, on its summit, which marked on the Alps the boundary between the lands of the Empire and those of the conquered Gauls. The auto, leaving the hamlet of La Turbie behind, was now running along the ancient Roman road.